The Power of Prayer

God hears all our prayers, the good and the bad. He is big enough to handle our honest questions and our doubts and even our anger. In the Bible, in several places and several different ways, it says things like you shall not fear for the Lord your God is with you. It also tells you to cast your cares upon the Lord. He has promises and truth hidden in the word that say he will lift you up, and he will fight for you. These scriptures I referenced tell me several things. First off in the natural fear is normal, it’s a tool used by the enemy often. Secondly, we’re going to have trouble. We’re going to have some cares that arise in this world. Still, he very merely gives us the key ingredients to have victory instead of defeat, and those key things are rooted in his word and wrapped up in truth, presented in Faith and sealing and signed in his love.

How do we unlock this gift? How do we tap into these promises and watch scriptures jump out of our pages of our Bible and into a life-giving force in our lives? PRAYER!

Prayer is so vital we should be doing our battle in the supernatural. I believe 90% of our problems in the world today, and especially here in America as the church is, we are Bible illiterate. We are not a true Bible-believing; prayer seeking; prayer-answering, prayer authority moving body of believers. When the followers of Christ waited for the gift of the Holy Spirit to come, they went to an upper room for about ten days and worshiped and prayed. The disciples wrote about Jesus’s example of prayer at least a minimal of 20 times in the New Testament of Jesus praying, some of his prayers. His example of how to pray and, most of all, the prayer was crucial for him to be walking under the Father’s will. See Jesus fellowshipped on earth with the Father in prayer. He went away to pray all alone at times. Sometimes he asked them to watch and pray with him even. His friends were so intrigued by his prayer life that one of the things that they noted is they said to teach us how to pray.

God has shown me in this past year, the power of prayer, the power of worship, and the power of his word. Martin Luther says, “to be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.” The Bible says to be joyful always pray continually give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus 1^st Thessalonians 5:16-18.

So let us fight in the supernatural instead of the natural, and by doing this, we will walk in victory in the natural due to the authority given to us from Faith in God; the secret weapon is the blood of Jesus. What does that mean? It means this as I have searched scriptures for myself and done a study by Kenneth Hagin on prayer. I have authority you have authority, and this authority was given to us when Jesus died and was raised from death to life. He is our victory, and victory comes from the power of his blood poured out for us. The Bible says to ask, and it will be given to you, seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you, Mathew 7:7.

Maybe you’re just like I was, and your prayers feel like they just bounce off the walls, and you don’t see your prayers answered. Well, I got hungry, I wanted more of him, and I wanted answers, I read Acts and said God let my Faith and your power be like the early church for I am your bride, I am your daughter. The world needs your power to flow through people like me. I heard him whisper. It’s the heart; it is about hunger for it and availability to let me use you to flow through them. If you will give the glory to the name of Jesus and the want to be filled with the power of the Spirit and you are humble enough to make sure ALL CREDIT goes back to the FATHER, then prayers will be answered.

So as I am seeking, this is what I found so far. As I look over the scriptures, searching for what God has to say about prayer, I find several things immediately that can cause your prayers not to be answered.

1. We are called to pray with a clean heart: This means repent and stop living in sin. He answers the prayers of a righteous man. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. But certainly, God has heard me he has attended to the voice of my prayer” this is found in Psalm 66: 18-19.

2. We are called to pray believing: This means in Faith; no doubt, claiming his word as truth standing on it. “And whenever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive” Matthew 21:22.

3. We are called to pray in Christ’s name: It’s said the word became flesh and dwelt among us. His name is the name above all names. When he taught the disciples to pray even spoke of how a time would come when they would ask anything in his name. He spoke of these things before his death because, by his death, we get the final authority. ‘And whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son John 14:13.

4. We are called to pray according to the Father’s will: People will ask for sinful things. He is not going to give you that; he’s a good father. People say well, how do you know what God’s will is. Well, he so amazing he gave us a book full of his will, his plans, and his purpose. As we let the light of God’s word change our hearts, we start to want to do the will of God and obey Him out of an overflow of our love for him. “Now this is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” 1^st John 5:14.

5. We have authority over the defeated foe the devil: As we seek God, we find more of him in Faith, and he lights the fire of the Holy Spirit inside of us. I just love the passage of Scripture from Luke 10: 18-22. ¹⁸And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ¹⁹Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and overall the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. ²⁰Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but 6rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” ²¹In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. ²²All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

So the question is, will you take what you have just read and let it transform not only your life but the life of all that is around you. Take authority back church, and I have laid out How above. We have a real enemy who wants to kill steal and destroy, so let’s be fully protected in the armor of God. We have to use the power given to us in Faith, or it lessens. We must train up, run our race, exercise per se our authority. Send that power at a target and aim strategically with the word.

I have one more example, and I’ll close with this. Let’s think about the story in the Bible about David and Goliath. Now David could have taken all five of his stones and just Chucked them all at once. Now is that what he did? No! He took one, and he picked a target, and with the power and accordance to the authority of the name of the Lord, he looked at his mark, and he hit the spot designated by God and by doing that; by trusting in the name of The Lord he had victory. Well, guess what all of you the same is true for us. We have the name and the blood power of JESUS!! You don’t have to fling every scripture about the topic you are waring all at once. Just claim one WORD. Like Jesus did when he was tempted. You stand on the targeted truth strategically.

Let’s be strategic on how we throw our prayer stones at him. Then you WATCH the DEVIL Flee! Now that’s Prayer POWER!!

Author: The Holy Spirit
Editor: JJ Michael Smith

God bless,
igotasavior